Lucy Gordon: Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride

‘You haven’t seen much of your Italian relatives, have you?’ David asked now.

‘My mother was Enrico Mori’s niece. He came to visit us a couple of times. He was an excitable man, very intense and emotional. Just like her.’

‘But not like you?’

She laughed. ‘Well, I couldn’t afford to be intense and emotional. Mum filled the house with her melodrama. I adored her, but I suppose I developed my common sense as a reaction. One of us had to be cool, calm and collected.

‘I remember Enrico frowning and saying, “You must be like your English Poppa,” and it wasn’t a compliment. Poppa died when I was twelve, but I remember he never shouted or lost his temper.’

‘And you don’t either.’

‘What’s the point? It’s better to talk things out sensibly. Mum used to say that one day we’d visit Italy together, and I’d “see the light”. She even raised me to speak Italian and some Tuscan dialect, so that I wouldn’t be all at sea when we visited “my other country”.’

‘But you never went?’

‘She became ill. When she died three years ago Enrico came over and I met him again.’

‘Are you his only heir?’

‘No, there are some distant cousins who inherit his house and land. He was a rich man, with no wife or children. He lived alone in Florence, having a great old time, drinking and chasing women.’

‘So where did Vincente Farnese come into this?’

‘They were old friends. A few years ago he borrowed some money from Enrico, and charged it against Belluna, that’s the farm. Last week, apparently, they went out on a binge, drove the car home, and had the accident that killed them both.’

‘And his sons had no idea that there was a hefty mortgage against the land?’

‘Not until Enrico’s will was read, apparently.’

‘So you’re going right into the lion’s den? Be careful.’

‘You surely don’t think I’ll be assassinated down a dark lane? I shall go to Florence, make an arrangement with the Farnese brothers, and then come home.’

‘And if they can’t raise the money, and you sell your interest to an outsider? Will they sit quiet for that?’

‘Don’t be melodramatic, David,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m sure they’re reasonable people, just as I am. We’ll sort it all out, somehow.’

‘Reasonable?’ Rinaldo snapped. ‘Our father charged a huge loan against this property without telling us, and the lawyers want us to be reasonable?’

Gino sighed. ‘I still can’t take it in,’ he said. ‘How could Poppa have kept such a secret for so long, especially from you?’

The light was fading, for the evening was well advanced. Standing by the window of his home, looking out over the hills and fields that stretched into the distance, earth that he had cultivated with his own hands, sometimes at terrible cost, Rinaldo knew that he must cling onto this, or go mad.

‘You and I are Poppa’s heirs and the legal owners of Belluna,’ Gino pointed out. ‘This woman can’t change that.’

‘She can if we can’t pay up. If she doesn’t get her cash she can claim one third of Belluna. Poppa never made any repayments, so now we owe the whole amount, plus interest.’

‘Well, I suppose we gained from having all that money,’ Gino mused.

‘That’s true,’ Rinaldo admitted reluctantly. ‘It paid for the new machinery, the hire of extra labourers, the best fertiliser, which has greatly improved our crops. All that cost a fortune. Poppa just said he’d won the lottery.’

‘And we believed it until the wills were read,’ Gino said heavily. ‘That’s what hurts, that he left us to find out like that.’ But then he gave a heavy sigh. ‘Still, I suppose we shouldn’t blame him. He didn’t know he was going to die suddenly. Do we know anything about this woman, apart from the fact that she’s English?’

‘According to the lawyer her name is Alexandra Dacre. She’s in her late twenties, an accountant, and lives in London.’

‘I don’t like the sound of her,’ Gino sighed.

‘Neither do I. This is a cold-blooded Anglo-Saxon. She works with money, and that’s all she’ll care about.’

He raised his head suddenly, and there was a fierce intensity in his eyes.

‘We have no choice,’ he said. ‘We have to get rid of her.’

Gino jumped. ‘How? Rinaldo, for pity’s sake-!’

At that moment he could have believed his brother capable of any cruel act.

Rinaldo gave a brief smile, which had the strange effect of making his face even more grim than before.

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘I’m not planning murder. I don’t say the idea isn’t appealing, but it’s not what I meant. I want to dispose of her legally.’

‘So we have to pay her.’

‘How? All the money we have is ploughed into the land until harvest. We’re already overdrawn at the bank, and a loan would be at a ruinous rate of interest.’

‘Can’t our lawyer suggest something?’

‘He’s going soft in the head. Since she’s single he had the brilliant idea that one of us marry her.’

‘That’s it!’ Gino cried. ‘The perfect answer. All problems solved.’

He spread his hands in a triumphant gesture and gave his attractive, easy laugh. He was twenty-seven and there was still a touch of the boy about him.

‘So now we have to meet her,’ he said. ‘I wonder if she’ll come to Poppa’s funeral?’

‘She won’t dare!’ Rinaldo snapped. ‘Now, come and have supper. Teresa’s been getting it ready.’

In the kitchen they found Teresa, the elderly housekeeper, laying the table. As she worked she wept. It had been like that every day since Vincente had died.

Rinaldo wasn’t hungry, but he knew that to say so would be to upset the old woman even more. Instead he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, silently comforting her until she stopped weeping.

‘That’s better now,’ he said kindly. ‘You know how Poppa hated long faces.’

She nodded. ‘Always laughing,’ she said huskily. ‘Even if the crops failed, he would find something to laugh at. He was a rare one.’

‘Yes, he was,’ Rinaldo agreed. ‘And we must remember him like that.’

She looked at the chair by the great kitchen range, where Vincente had often sat.

‘He should be there,’ she said. ‘Telling funny stories, making silly jokes. Do you remember how terrible his jokes were?’

Rinaldo nodded. ‘And the worst puns I ever heard.’

Gino came in and gave Teresa a big, generous hug. He was a young man who hugged people easily, and it made him loved wherever he went. Now it was enough to start her crying again, and he held her patiently in his strong arms until she was ready to stop.

Rinaldo left them and went outside. When he’d gone Teresa muttered, ‘He’s lost so many of those he loved, and each time I’ve seen his face grow a little darker, a little more bleak.’

Gino nodded. He knew Teresa was talking about Rinaldo’s wife Maria, and their baby son, both dead in the second year of their marriage.

‘If they’d lived, the little boy would have been nearly ten by now,’ he reflected. ‘And they’d probably have had several more children. This house would have been full of kids. I’d have had nephews and nieces to teach mischief to, instead of-’

He looked up at the building that was much too large for the three people who shared it.

‘Now he only has you,’ Teresa agreed.

‘And you. And that daft mutt. Sometimes I think Brutus means more to him than any other creature, because he was Maria’s dog. Apart from that he loves the farm, and he’s possessive about it because he has so little else. I hope Signorina Dacre has a lot of nerve, because she’s going to need it.’